Tan Yifan

    cicitan2011@gmail.com

    TWO months ago, while browsing my WeChat moments, I coincidently noticed that two different people had shared their experiences with bigu — a Taoist term referring to practicing asceticism and fasting, and maybe more than that.

    Bigu, which was an obscure term to me, someone who barely spends any time working out or trying various ways to keep fit, has become a popular practice for many Chinese dieters and healthy life enthusiasts.

    A coach and practitioner surnamed Ma told me on Weibo that bigu is an ancient Chinese practice that requires followers to eat nothing for a certain period of time. “Bi” in Chinese means “to stop, to give up,” while “gu” is the general term for crops. Ma said the earliest record of bigu can be found in “Zhuangzi,” a book written by famed Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou (369- 286 B.C.) and his students. It mentions people who live in the mountains and live long lives in spite of having nothing to eat but gulps of wind and nothing to drink but sips of dew.

    Bigu can be compared to Taoist fasting, but for its followers, it shouldn’t be treated just as an extreme way of dieting.

    Li Zihua, who posted about her seven-day bigu on WeChat, told me that it has given her a new life.

    “I felt quite relaxed and calm after practicing it with my friends,” she said. “My coach told me that I have restarted my immune system, which I am not quite sure about, but I can feel that I have expelled the negative elements from my body and I have been surprised by my willpower.”

    Li joined a team of bigu enthusiasts in April and stayed six nights at Nankun Mountain, which is close to Huizhou City. She said it’s better to join a group and follow a professional coach than try to follow a bigu lifestyle online.

    “Now, you can search for simple instructions online and even join a discussion group, but bigu isn’t the same as apastia — a wrong practice may cause serious health problem,” she said. “With the help of a teacher, most of us can get through the non-eating days.”

    Li’s training group chose to stay at the mountain because fresh air and water are important for the practice.

    “The coaches will teach you the proper way to breathe. Inhaling clean air with a high density of negative oxygen ions will help you cleanse your body,” Li said.

    Li said she dieted for a week in preparation for her rustic retreat. Upon arriving, she was required to fill out a form about her health status. After a short orientation, she was assigned to a small group tasked with supporting one another through their bigu journey.

    According to Li’s diary, she and her trainer had differing views of bigu. “What he said and taught were a bit strange to me, I didn’t totally agree with his understanding of Taoism since my major in college was philosophy,” she said. “But my peers said that I needed to temporarily forget the differences and follow his instructions.

    “I then started to learn how to adjust my breathing and practiced some Taoist ‘kung fu,’” she said. “The teacher, or the master, pressed on some of our acupoints to help stop uncomfortable feelings such as the urge to vomit.”

    Li said she was handed a class schedule when she arrived at the admission desk. Her schedule was full of Taoism-related courses and even a class on writing Chinese calligraphy.

    “I stopped eating a day before joining the group, but when the real thing began, I didn’t feel hungry. I brought some candies with me. When the fourth day came, however, I looked at the candies, and did not have the desire to eat them,” she said.

    “Following our leader’s direction, we swallowed the air three times a day, and when the seventh day came, I felt very refreshed and even finished a long night walk with my peers,” she said.

    During the bigu period, Li was told not to take a shower because the coach said the disrupted immune system might not be able to protect against the cold or dampness.

    Li said when it ended, she was put on a liquid diet for three days and could not eat any salt.

    “The body has just experienced a wonderful phase, and any stimulus will cause discomfort,” she explained.

    Zhao Long, the co-founder of Shenzhen Startup Salad, also shared his experience of bigu with me. He said some participants joined the group with the hopes of losing weight or trying to cure a disease, and he joined only to challenge himself to “find pleasure through torture.”

    Zhao said he has practiced bigu twice this year and he plans to do it again. “It is a way to test your strength, to see how far you can go,” he said. “But bigu is not for everyone. People with certain health problems should consult a doctor before making the decision. Enduring starvation is hard.”

    Some netizens have bragged about their achievements, sharing their accounts of not just abstaining from food, but also the weight they have lost.

    But despite the positive effects bigu has brought for some, others question the rationality of the exercise. Opposers of the practice say that it has misled those who want to lose weight within a short period of time and that the so-called restarting the immune system and curing of diseases are unscientific.

    A Guangzhou medical practitioner named Wei Liping said enthusiasts should be cautious before undergoing such a diet: “A study conducted recently showed that a person’s muscles volume will decrease and uric acid will increase if they don’t eat for several days.

    “If a person goes too long without eating, it could cause organ damage,” she added.

    Three levels of practicing bigu

    Beginners: Participants are allowed to have some fruit such as dates and drink cold water.

    Middle-level: Trainees are allowed to drink some cold water.

    High-level: Both fruit and water are prohibited.

    Some coaches offer trainees self-made pills or soup to help them through the bigu process.